Garden Diary

October 27, 2026 🌱 Red Flame switchgrass and a bit of frost aster.

October 26, 2026 🌱 Virginia creeper on the neighbor’s fence, doing its best poison ivy impression. Not only are there mostly leaves of three, but a couple of the leaflets even have the characteristic poison ivy thumbs.

October 25, 2026 🌱 I don’t know what mind tricks the sandcherry is using to convince me it isn‘t changing color. I wasn't sure whether to photograph it today since it’s hardly changed since the last photo. Looking at the actual photos, the difference is obvious.

October 24, 2026 🌱 White snakeroot seedheads.

October 23, 2026 🌱 The hosta by the compost bin. This one struggled after transplanting and I haven’t seen it bloom yet. Maybe next year.

October 22, 2026 🌱 A baby hackberry tree. I have eleventy billion of these.

October 21, 2026 🌱 Fall color downloading.

October 20, 2026 🌱 I heard a rustling in the garden, and then this cutie emerged from the overgrowth.

October 19, 2026 🐈‍⬛ I forgot to take a garden pic again, so here’s People Magazine’s sexiest cat alive.

October 18, 2026 🌱 Today I saw two fuzzy bumblebees on the blue-stemmed goldenrod. Here‘s one.

October 17, 2026 🌱 The last of the smooth blue aster. We started the week with summer swelter, and this morning we were nearly down to freezing.

October 16, 2026 🌱 The grass-leaved goldenrod is done blooming. I don’t remember whether it gets fuzzy like Canada goldenrod when it sets seed.

October 15, 2026 🌱 A fall tableau.

October 14, 2026 🌱 The marigolds did not have a fun time this summer. Only two survived. This one got an autumn second wind.

October 13, 2026 🌱 Everyone’s on their own schedule. These evening primrose seed pods and their entire plant are all dried up for the winter. Another evening primrose plant in the same garden is green and blooming. In the background, the maple tree, which has no fall color yet.

October 12, 2026 🌱 The boneset is splaying outward, revealing this neat pattern of stems in the middle.

October 11, 2026 🌱 Not my garden but in the neighborhood… fall color setting in from top to bottom.

October 10, 2026 🌱 They grow up so fast 🥹 This is one of the columbabies I grew from seed, the same one as in the August 25, 2025 post. Not a baby anymore!

October 9, 2026 🌱 Prairie dropseed (the grass) and ground cherry fruit (the paper lanterns).

October 8, 2026 🌱 Prairie alumroot, jostling elbows with the grass and a morning glory vine.

October 7, 2026 🌱 Fall color coming in on the purpleleaf sandcherry.

October 6, 2026 🌱 “Wait, didn’t I use to have a culver’s root?” I had to move a lot of frost aster, but I found it 😂

October 5, 2026 🌱 The grape hyacinth leaves are such an interesting contrast, growing in in the fall, all fresh and lush, while everything around is drying out and turning earth tones and settling down for the winter.

October 4, 2026 🌱 “It’s so fluffy, I’m gonna die!”

October 3, 2026 🌱 Evening primrose has a peculiar pattern of having just a couple leaves turn bright red in fall. Here’s a dramatic example.

October 2, 2026 🌱 A showy evening primrose flower gathering raindrops.

October 1, 2026 🌱 There’s a carpet of first-year bellflower plants where the bellflower bloomed last year. Two of them didn‘t have the patience to be biennial, and they skipped ahead to the second-year form. They’re very short and blooming out of season, but they are blooming. Here’s one of them.

September 30, 2026 🌱 Early sunflower in an autumn rain.

September 29, 2026 🌱 What the big-leaved aster lacks in grace, it makes up for in enthusiasm.

September 28, 2026 🌱 Forgot to take a garden pic again. Have some more sky drama.

September 27, 2026 🌱 I was sitting on the porch, and the birds were all atwitter in the maple tree. I couldn‘t see them, though. After a bit they stopped. Guess I’ll never know what the ruckus was about.

September 26, 2026 🌱 I don’t get many butterfly visitors, so I hope you’ll excuse this fella for the blurriness.

September 25, 2026 🌱 Posting the blue-stemmed goldenrod a third time, because it sparks joy in me.

September 24, 2026 🌱 Someone thought the woodland sunflower was delicious 😬

September 23, 2026 🌱 A late-season burst of new growth on one poppy mallow stem. No idea why.

September 22, 2026 🌱 A gorgeous squash (?) blossom in the compost bin. I get volunteer cucurbits on the regular and they often bloom, but so far none have set fruit.

September 21, 2026 🌱 Aromatic aster in bloom. This plant has the weirdest shape. Bare stem for over half its height, then a lush ball of foliage and flowers. There’s a second aromatic aster nearby, with the same shape. Both plants have their lush crowns lying on the ground, because physics 😂

September 20, 2026 🌱 Forgot to take a garden pic before it got dark today, but I did catch this lovely sunrise a few days ago.

September 19, 2026 🌱 The smooth blue aster is starting to fade, while the frost aster is just coming in.

September 18, 2026 🌱 A mix of little bluestem and showy evening primrose, which clearly intends to bloom forever.

September 17, 2026 🌱 A bedraggled squirrel in the rain. I imagine it’s probably thinking, “Worth it for this black walnut!”

September 16, 2026 🌱 The Canada goldenrod is done blooming. The grass-leaved goldenrod is fading but still a bee magnet. And the blue-stemmed goldenrod is in gorgeous full bloom.

September 15, 2026 🌱 The weirdly early aster flower has company.

September 14, 2026 🌱 The Missouri ironweed has gone fuzzy.

September 13, 2026 🌱 Finally got my golden alexanders in the ground. Better late than never 😬

September 12, 2026 🌱 Ground cherry fruit. The husks dry as it ripens. I got excited seeing so many fruits reach this stage… but I only found one edible one. Most were either rotten or undeveloped.

September 11, 2026 🌱 The hoary vervain is less riotous, but still blooming.

September 10, 2026 🌱 A little juniper or something, just chilling by the driveway where almost nothing grows.

September 9, 2026 🌱 It’s black walnut importation time again.

September 8, 2026 🌱 Blue-stemmed goldenrod, growing in a more conventional geometry this year.